


incandescence.

by Sam (iStuhler)



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 12:17:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11104419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iStuhler/pseuds/Sam
Summary: It takes all Mike has not to go after Abby. He wants to, by God he does... but he can’t. He has to let her go.





	incandescence.

It takes all Mike has not to go after Abby. He wants to, by God he does... but he can’t. He has to let her go. 

If he’d been in her position, he knows that he wouldn’t want someone running after him, especially not someone who carries a loaded gun on them like that. He knows that she goes back to the east coast. She’s got school to finish, after all. But other than that… that’s it. 

So he doesn’t call, doesn’t text… if she wants to reach out to him, then she can. This needs to be on her end.

When he goes outside for his run and he doesn’t hear the familiar barking that he usually does as he jogs by the condo that Abby had been staying at, though… he slows to a stop and turns to look. BD doesn’t run towards him from the doghouse that Abby had bought him. The doghouse isn’t even there.

Worry spikes through Mike but he brushes it off. She probably just… took the dog home with her. His heart aches a little, thinking that he’d never see the brown and white pup again. He, just like Abby, had slipped from his life like water through a sieve.

It doesn’t stop him from putting up posters, though. Just in case. Lost dog, they read. Unknown breed. Answers to BD. He spends twenty minutes searching through Google til he finds a photograph that looks similar to BD and sticks it on the poster, then takes them out on his next run and tapes them to random spots along the way.

BD never shows, and Mike never gets any calls to the burner phone number he’d put on the poster. 

The posters hang there til they grow tattered, covered in sea spray and graffiti.

And Mike goes back to Washington DC, leaving the surf and sand and posters behind to become the Assistant to the Deputy Director. It’s what he’s wanted since he was a little kid, and so it should feel good. But it doesn’t.

He sits at a desk, doing administrative tasks for most of his day. It takes everything he’s got to push for an assignment, and soon he’s got a team (of one other person) and an office of his own (it’s more of a cupboard with a white board attached to the wall) and things start to feel more… right.

Though… as he stares at the board, names of bus lines scrawled all over its surface, he wonders not for the first time if his time at Graceland had taught him something more than he’d thought. Had it shown him that he didn’t want to be suck in an office? 

He finds that he misses the feeling of sand between his toes, but he pushes it off to the side and buckles down. He focuses on his busses, he does his research…

…and nothing comes of it. The case is pulled, and Mike’s sent back to taking notes at meetings. He’s an assistant, and so he assists. He wants to protest, wants to say that he was the one who took down Jeremiah Bello… but he also knows that he’d already used that to get the bus assignment. He has no more pull left.

(And then there’s the fact that he’s sleeping with his boss…)

Mike sits in front of Paul’s Bakery and Cafe, a coffee in one hand and a bag in the other; there’s a few various pastries in there, but he’s not hungry yet. He’ll eat something when he gets back to his office. For now, though, he’s content to sit there and stare at the Navy Memorial, poeple-watching without actually people-watching. The coffee is still hot, so he lets it cool, warmth seeping into his hand.

“…Mike?”

The voice he hears is hesitant, soft, and so, so achingly familiar. Mike looks up, and his eyes meet deep brown pools that he used to get lost in so easily. 

“Abby, hey—” He gives her a smile and stands, trying to hug her without spilling his coffee on her and without smacking her in the back with his pastries. “It’s been a while—“

“Yeah, it has.” She half-smiles, taking a sip of the drink in her own hands; it’s some sort of green juice drink from the Protein Bar around the corner. “It’s so weird to run into you here… I thought you were back in California…?”

Mike shakes his head. “I… no. Work’s here now.”

Abby eyes him, and he can see a mix of curiosity and… something else in her eyes. He can tell she can see the exact same thing mirrored in his own.

“I… oh. I should… Abby, I need to apologize for what happened back at Graceland…”

“Graceland? What’s that, some Elvis joke? Playing house with gun-toting pilots? Oh wait…” She sounds bitter, and the smile fades from her face.

In response, Mike digs in his pocket, and hands her the black leather folio that contains his badge. 

Confused, Abby takes it and flips it open, looking down. The surprise on her face is palpable. 

“Graceland,” Mike clarifies, “is the name of a safe-house in Southern California where agents from the FBI, DEA, and ICE coexist and solve crimes. Real Scooby Doo and the gang-type stuff.”

Abby looks up at Mike, her lips parted. She’s speechless.

“I couldn’t tell you who I was,” Mike continues. “So I had to make something up. I had a gun because I’m FBI… several guns, actually, though I only stupidly left one laying out.”

“And… and Paige…?”

“DEA.”

“Ah.” Abby hands the badge back, and then takes a sip of her drink. “I see. That… that makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it. You always… running off to places where you couldn’t tell me, you disappearing for weeks on end, you not wanting me in the house…”

“There was a ‘no girls upstairs’ rule,” Mike explains, a bit ruefully. “Being at the house was fine, but upstairs… that was where I messed up.” 

Abby nods. “Right. Okay. Uh, I need to…” She gestures towards the Department of Justice building. “I work for the US AG’s office. I… you’re just… across the street, then.” 

“Yeah. The Hoover building.” It’s unnecessary for him to say it, but he does anyway. 

“I’m… here, let me…” She turns and sets her drink down, then roots in the purse over her shoulder. After a few moments she pulls out a wallet, and then a business card. She offers it to him as she picks her drink back up. “This is my card. I… maybe we could go for a drink after work, some night that we’re both not working crazy hours or anything.”

Mike takes the card and looks down at it; it’s simple, professional: Abigail Sinclair, Esq. US Attorney General’s Office. “Esquire, huh? So you passed the bar?”

Abby blushes, and Mike feels his heart thud in his chest a little harder than usual. “I did,” she confirms with a smile, the first one since he’d dropped the news on her about his actual profession. “Did really well on it, actually.”

“That’s good to hear.” Mike’s own face mirrors hers. “But yeah, you’re right; I should get back too. Lunch break is almost over.” He makes a face at that, and she laughs.

“Let’s walk and talk,” she suggests, and so they do; as they walk, they manage to catch each other up on how long they’ve been in DC and where they’re living. While Mike’s in a small one bedroom apartment two blocks away from the Hoover building, having unconsciously tried to find an apartment that would make him feel a little like he’s still back home in New York, Abby’s in a larger place with a more rustic feel closer to Georgetown that she’s lived in since college.

They reach the point where they need to part, and Abby doesn’t hesitate before leaning in to give Mike another hug. “Call me,” she tells him, her voice sincere as they separate, her heading across the street to the Justice building and him up the steps to the Federal building. 

And he does call, two days later when he’s out of work and heading home. She doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t expect her to; he’d gotten out early today, so her and everyone else in DC are still stuck at work. It’s bright and sunny and he walks home with his phone pressed to his ear. He leaves a brief message, just for her to call him back.

Two hours later, she does, and after a chat, Mike suggests that they get dinner the following night at a burger place halfway between their two apartments. Abby counters, and says that her roommate has relatives from Ecuador and that they’d made a huge meal the night before and that she’d given Abby the leftovers. She needs help to clean out her fridge, she explains to Mike, and she knows how much he’d loved Hector’s back in LA. 

Of course, he accepts, and at 5:30 the next evening, Mike’s on her doorstep with a bottle of wine and a very empty stomach; he’d forgone eating lunch to prepare for the food.

What he’s not prepared for, however, is for the fluffy brown and white dog to spring on him the second the door opens. It takes only a few licks for Mike to process it all.

“BD?!” The dog barks and keeps licking, and Mike can’t help but laugh. He sets the wine down on a table and sinks to the floor, not at all caring that the dog is getting hair all over his black suit. BD wiggles his way onto Mike’s lap and leans against him, panting happily, and Mike can’t let go of him. His fingers comb through the dog’s hair, and he marvels at how happy and healthy the dog looks.

“So you’re the one who took him,” he says with a stupid grin, looking up at Abby, who’s leaning against the door frame, smiling at the two of them on the ground. “I looked for him everywhere, I thought he’d run off or someone had taken him, or he’d been hit by a car or something… I’m glad that he went with you. He looks so happy.” 

“He is. He didn’t want to leave, but… now that he’s here, he’s thriving, you know? Even has a girlfriend in the house across the street.”

Mike chuckles and stands, BD leaning against his leg. “Is his name still—“

“BD? Yeah. I couldn’t… couldn’t change that.”

Mike bends and pets the dog on the top of the head gently, the smile on his face shifting to something more fond. 

“He still has the flip flop. The red one.” Abby’s voice is soft. “I wanted to throw it out, after everything, but… I kept it. As some sort of memento, maybe. That, and he growled at me when I tried to take it from him.” She gestures down the hall with a tilt of her head, to a small basket filled with bones and ropes and other dog toys. There’s a small bit of red rubber peeking out. 

“Abby, I—“ Mike wants to apologize again. He wants to pull her close, hold her tightly, and tell her how so very sorry he is that he hurt her, that he lied to her.

“There’s time for that later, Mike,” Abby says gently, reaching out to touch his arm gently. “Right now, though? The food’s getting cold. Come on. After dinner we’ll sit outside on the porch swing, light some candles... and we’ll talk. Sound good?”

Mike laughs weakly. “Yeah, Abs. That sounds… that sounds really good.”

For the first time since his first day at Quantico, sitting among the other NATs, he feels the seed of something new spring up in his heart. 

Hope.


End file.
